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How to Offload WordPress Media Files to Amazon CloudFront: The Definitive Guide

How to Offload WordPress Media Files to Amazon CloudFront: The Definitive Guide

Do you want to seamlessly offload WordPress media files to Amazon CloudFront? Then this blog is for you. 

CloudFront is Amazon’s powerful content delivery network. Integrating Amazon CloudFront with your WordPress website to offload your media files, you can enhance the speed, reliability, and scalability of delivering media content to your audience.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned WordPress user, this blog will help you explore the WordPress media offloading process to the Amazon CloudFront platform.

So, keep reading and follow the steps shown in this blog to effectively offload WordPress media files to Amazon CloudFront.

Amazon CloudFront: What You Need to Know

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN). It is offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It helps deliver content, including webpages, videos, images, and other static and dynamic content to users with high transfer speeds.

When a user requests content, CloudFront delivers it from the nearest edge location. This process reduces the physical distance that the data must travel. 

CloudFront ensures fast content delivery to users worldwide which is beneficial for websites with a worldwide audience. It is a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.

7 Benefits of Offloading Your WordPress Media Files and Serving Them from Amazon CloudFront

Integrating Amazon CloudFront with WordPress sites to offload media content offers several benefits. Let’s discuss about the importance of taking your media files from WordPress to Amazon CloudFront. 

  1. It helps to improve website performance and speed. CloudFront caches static content (such as images, stylesheets, and JavaScript files) at edge locations which reduces the latency. 
  2. Offloading files in CloudFront reduces the load on your WordPress server. As a result, it helps in lowering your server hosting costs.
  3. CloudFront enables faster content delivery to users worldwide. Because it works to improve the user experience for international visitors.
  4. By preventing DDoS attacks and reducing them with its distributed network and web application firewall, CloudFront integration can improve security.
  5. By providing faster page load times and a better user experience, CloudFront integration lowers the bounce rate and increases the conversion rate.
  6. It helps build trust with visitors by ensuring their data remains confidential.
  7. It enhances the user experience and helps you effectively manage your website’s resources.

How to Integrate Amazon CloudFront to Offload WP Media Files Easily (Step-by-step)  

To integrate Amazon CloudFront with WordPress sites to offload media files, you can use the Next3 Offload plugin. It supports you to offload your media files to Amazon CloudFront Cloud Storage without any hassle.

Using Next3 Offload you can also connect your WordPress site with Wasabi, Bunny CDN, DigitalOcean, Amazon S3, and S3-compatible Object Storages (Cloudflare R2, MiniO, IDrive e2, StackPath, and more)

To integrate Amazon CloudFront Cloud Storage with your WordPress website, you must take the actions listed below. 

Step #1: Install And Activate Next3 Offload

To integrate your WordPress media files with Amazon CloudFront, first, you need to get Next3 Offload from its official page. Then install and activate it on your WordPress website.
First, you need to log in to your WordPress admin dashboard. Then, you need to go to the Plugins section.

plugin tab

Now you can click on the Add New Plugin button. 

add new plugin 2

You need to navigate to the Upload Plugin option.

upload plugin 3

At this point, you have to click on the Choose File option. Now Upload the Next3 Offload plugin here.

choose file

You need to click on the Install Now button (Here is the complete installation process).

install plugin

Then, you can activate the plugin.

activate plugin

Now, to completely access the plugin, you need to activate the license. Insert your collected license key in the field.

After that, click on the Activate License button.

active licensence

After following the whole process, you can access the Next3 Offload dashboard and use all the features of this plugin.

Step #2: Sign Up for AWS 

If you haven’t already, sign up for an AWS account at https://aws.amazon.com/ and navigate to the AWS Management Console.

Amazon web service account creation

After logging in to the AWS console you need to complete the given steps to integrate your WordPress website with Amazon S3.

  • You have to create an IAM user.
  • Then set up Bucket public permission to disable public access.
  • Collect and save Access key ID and Secret Access Key.

These are the main tasks that you need to complete first. To have a more clear idea you can follow this blog that contains the Amazon S3 integration process briefly.

Step #3: Create an Amazon CloudFront Distribution

Log into the AWS console and you need to go to the “Distributions” section of the AWS Console’s CloudFront page. Now you have to create a CloudFront Distribution. 

CloudFront Distribution creation

To create a CloudFront distribution, you need to insert the Origin Domain Name. This name will specify the origin server where your WordPress site is hosted (e.g., yoursite.com). Here you also have to check the box for Origin Access and enter the Origin path

insert origin domain name

Then setup the Viewer Protocol Policy section.  Here you need to select the SSL certificate and Supported HTTP version for better security.

CloudFront Distribution creation custom SSL certificate 4

Configure all distribution settings and create other settings as per your requirements to complete the distribution creation process.

CloudFront Distribution creation completion

You can get help from our documentation to create the distribution.

Step #4: Choose a Provider

To connect with Amazon S3, first of all, select a provider. Here you need to choose the provider Amazon S3 to integrate with the WordPress site.

Select Amazon as provider

At this stage, you need to insert the Access Key and Secret Key. Now, you have to insert the credentials that you have collected when setting up the Amazon Web Services (AWS)  account. 

Step #5: Insert Credentials (Access Key & Secret Key)

From your collected credentials, enter the Access key ID and Secret Access Key. After copying the keys go to your WordPress admin panel and enter the required Keys into the related fields. Then click on Next.

Insert API and Secret Key

For further help, you can check our documentation section.

After inserting the credentials, Go for the following steps.    

Step #6: Connect with Bucket

Now you need to select a bucket or create a new bucket that Next3 Offload Media should use to begin offloading uploaded media files to Amazon S3. 

Bucket creation

The “Create New Bucket” link will take you to a form where you can enter the bucket’s name and region if you haven’t already done it.

Create new bucket

You can also “Browse Existing Buckets” if you haven’t restricted your IAM User’s access to list buckets.

Select existing bucket

Step #7: Setup Storage Settings

It is required to configure all of the basic functions on Storage Settings after integrating Amazon CloudFront with WordPress.

To change the default storage settings, navigate to the WordPress Admin Dashboard and choose the Next3 Offload option.

Select Next3 tab

You need to select Storage Settings from the Next3 Offload control panel, 

Settings section selection

Then you have to enable Offload media and Copy to local server options using the toggle button.

Setting's section features

You may also enable the Setup Path and File Management options after swiping down a little.

Add prefix, year, and month to the bucket path, add object version, rename files, offload format to the cloud, and so on are a few examples.

storage settings set up path

Step #8: Setup CloudFront from Delivery Settings

Now it’s time to select a provider to deliver your offloaded files. 

Click on the Delivery Settings Tab.

Now, you need to select a delivery provider. As you are integrating Amazon CloudFront, you need to select Amazon CloudFront as a delivery provider.

Select delivery provider Amazon CloudFront

You can check the preview URL

check URL for delivery

After enabling the basic functions, hit the Save Settings button.

delivery section's features

Step #9: Offload Your Media Files to The CloudFront

At the final stage, you can set up the Offload Settings. 

You can now offload your existing media files and individually offload the existing media files. To complete the offloading process just click on the Offload Now button to complete the offloading process.

Offload settings to offload files

You can also access the features to restore offloaded files to local storage and clean up offloaded files from local storage.

Offload features

Here you can both offload existing CSS and JS files to the Cloud effortlessly.

Offload features

You may now enjoy enhanced security, dependability, and performance from your WordPress website that is linked with CloudFront. To improve the performance of your website even more, be sure to often check its security and performance settings using the CloudFront dashboard.

Final Words 

Integrating S3 cloud storage and delivering media content from CloudFront with WordPress offers a huge benefit. It works on enhancing website performance and reducing storage expenses to ensure data reliability. We hope that following the steps above will help you offload your WordPress media files to Amazon CloudFront. 

With user-friendly plugins like Next3 Offload, you can organize and transfer media files effortlessly. By following these steps, you can create a faster, more optimized website ultimately attracting and engaging a larger audience.

You may connect with us on Facebook and X. Also, check out our YouTube channel to view videos.

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Mehrin Ferdous Meem
Written by

Mehrin Ferdous Meem

Mehrin is a content writer of ThemeDev who prefers to write about tech products, travelling, health, food, lifestyle, marketing, technology etc. She also works for creating video. She has completed her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Her hobbies include blogging, reading, cooking etc.

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